Phrynocephalus maculatus Anderson, 1872

HOLOTYPE. ZSI 4825.

TYPE LOCALITY. Awada, Shiraz, Persia; a misprint corrected to Abádeh, Fars Prov., by Blanford (1876).

DISTRIBUTION. E Arabian Peninsula (Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE) through Iraq to Iran, S Turkmenistan, S Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Arabian populations are recognized as a distinct subspecies, P. m. longicaudatus Haas.

DISTRIBUTION IN IRAN. Fig. 15. Most of the central plateau to elevations up to 3000 m.

HABITAT. Flat deserts with rather hard-packed, sandy clay soils or gravel-strewn hammadas (Minton 1966). Observed on a sun-dried mud by a salt lake.

REMARKS. Mountain massifs in the east (Afghanistan, Pakistan) form natural boundaries confining P. maculatus to the Iranian plateau. Since no other Phrynocephalus species crosses the Zagros Mountains, the ranges of the nominotypical form east of the Zagros and P. m. longicaudatus in the west may also be disjunct. The latter taxon will probably prove to be specifically distinct (Anderson 1999, p. 91).

REFERENCES. Anderson (1999, 2000); Khan (1999); Mozaffari & Parham (2007); Kazemi et al. (2011).